And amen to the Prius poster. I wouldn’t drive a Prius if they were free. Ditto every other tiny death trap chugging along on the Beltway. Not in this area.

You do realize it is possible to enjoy a modern lifestyle without the environmental impact of the average American? Look at Western Europe. Driving an SUV is simply a lifestyle choice.

Anonymous wrote:There are so many more productive ways to be environmentally conscious like not flying in a plane, eating less or no meat, not over consuming/buying crap you don't need.

NP. The single most productive way to be environmentally conscious, overwhelmingly, is to create fewer people (ie, for those with 3+ kids and say they need that car for 3+ kids).

Anonymous wrote:If you believe that the use of fossil fuels has caused/accelerated/contributed to climate change and drive an SUV, please help me understand how you reconcile your beliefs with your vehicle choice. I would genuinely like to know. I live in Bethesda and practically everybody I know drives an SUV. Yet I'm pretty sure that, if I asked, they would say they are very concerned about climate change and disappointed the US withdrew from the Kyoto protocol. Obviously I risk alienating friends and neighbors if I ask this directly as it could sound accusatory. Please only answer if you have an SUV and these beliefs.

Because I spend two hours in bad traffic every day, and I have a better chance surviving a collision in my SUV than in a little Prius.
People tend to focus on the immediate rather than the future.
This is the same reason that most prevention messages fall flat with the public. People are more focused on their daily life than on preventing a disease that may or may not happen in the future.

Recycling does not help the planet much. Recycling consumes a ton of energy.

Anonymous wrote:So, you SUV drivers know you are harming the environment and destroying your children's future. Yet you do it anyway. How do you reconcile that, exactly?

I have one kid, how many do you have? We cloth diapered, don't eat meat and recycle. That is probably far less harm than the SUV I drive that I hardy has any miles.

From a June 29, 1989, Associated Press dispatch:

Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of “eco-refugees,” threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP.

He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the greenhouse effect before it goes beyond human control.

As the warming melts polar icecaps, ocean levels will rise by up to three feet, enough to cover the Maldives and other flat island nations, Brown told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday.

Coastal regions will be inundated; one-sixth of Bangladesh could be flooded, displacing a fourth of its 90 million people. A fifth of Egypt’s arable land in the Nile Delta would be flooded, cutting off its food supply, according to a joint UNEP and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study. . . .

Shifting climate patterns would bring back 1930s Dust Bowl conditions to Canadian and U.S. wheatlands, while the Soviet Union could reap bumper crops if it adapts its agriculture in time, according to a study by UNEP and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of China's pollution is because they're manufacturing things for the US.

The US is far and away the most consumptive country on the planet.

What you need to do is live simply so that others may simply live!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So, you SUV drivers know you are harming the environment and destroying your children's future. Yet you do it anyway. How do you reconcile that, exactly?

By realizing that air travel and cow farts are much bigger problems.

Unless you never fly and don’t eat red meat you have no grounds for pointing fingers.

I don't eat any meat or fish and rarely fly/travel.. so, instead I'm driving my SUV. What you drive is just as important as how you use it? I probably drive less than 30-50 miles a week so the impact on that vs. a sedan and someone driving 30-50 miles a day for their commute plus other stuff is going to be far less.

Anonymous wrote:So, you SUV drivers know you are harming the environment and destroying your children's future. Yet you do it anyway. How do you reconcile that, exactly?

By realizing that air travel and cow farts are much bigger problems.

Unless you never fly and don’t eat red meat you have no grounds for pointing fingers.

A lot of China's pollution is because they're manufacturing things for the US.

The US is far and away the most consumptive country on the planet.

Anonymous wrote:We have two SUV’s. Gas guzzlers. Mostly because we are a very tall family. The third SUV (1999 model!) just died and we’ll probably replace it with a sedan. I honestly think that until China and even India get on board and seriously start to limit their pollution, etc., it won’t make a hoot of difference what we do in the US. We do other things to limit our footprint on the earth. For example, we no longer use straws.

LOL at straws being anything more than a tiny drop in the bucket

We have two SUV’s. Gas guzzlers. Mostly because we are a very tall family. The third SUV (1999 model!) just died and we’ll probably replace it with a sedan. I honestly think that until China and even India get on board and seriously start to limit their pollution, etc., it won’t make a hoot of difference what we do in the US. We do other things to limit our footprint on the earth. For example, we no longer use straws.

So, you SUV drivers know you are harming the environment and destroying your children's future. Yet you do it anyway. How do you reconcile that, exactly?

I dream of a dedicated forum for all the threads created specifically to criticize others.